Initially the settlement was known as Gopher Ridge by the Seminole and Miccosukee nations.

European-American hunters, trappers, Native American traders, cowmen, and missionaries moved in before permanent villages developed.

[4] In 1921, the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad extended its Haines City Branch south to Immokalee.

As of the 2020 United States census, there were 24,557 people, 5,985 households, and 4,517 families residing in the CDP.

13.1% of all households were made up of individuals, and 3.9% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older.

The station was built by volunteers from Immokalee and around the country in December 2003 at the fifth Prometheus Radio Project barnraising.

WCIW broadcasts music, news, and public affairs to listeners in Spanish, Haitian Creole and several indigenous languages.

In its beginnings WAFZ was WZOR-AM 1490 and played English-language adult contemporary music and news in the morning and until 3pm.

The early DJs who worked there were Gabino Soliz, "EL CHAVO ALEGRE", and Irma Ayala.

The station continued on the air until the mid-1990s, when it went silent until what is now WAFZ was bought by Glades Media Company LLC, and transmitted simultaneously what WAFZ-FM was playing (a regional Mexican format).

The current format of WAFZ is a young Regional Mexican, playing newer top 40 hits of the genre.

Collier Area Transit provides local bus service and paratransit.

The line was cut back to Sunniland south of Immokalee in the 1950s and then abandoned to the mainline at Palmdale in the 1980s.